TV forensics programs like CSI and Crossing
Jordan.The real thing is not entertaining.
Rubenstein was for the most part all business.
I reasoned that this was his way of protecting
himself, not just from an inquisitive journalist
but also from the nightmare he lived each day.
Once, though, he let down his guard. "As you
work with the victims, especially the children
their clothing, the baby bottles, the little shoes,
just like the ones we bought for our daughters
years ago, the little hands, so expressive in death
-you have to try not to get into the heads of
the monsters who did this, or it becomes over
whelming. You look at a perfectly knitted baby
bonnet with two bullet holes in it, and you think,
These could be your own kids."
The killers sometimes treated men, women,
and children differently. "The men show signs
of torture, of being tied and handcuffed," Ruben
stein said. "The women often had children with
them and received, perhaps, the blessing of
being shot once at close range. All of this is based
on clear evidence, not speculation."
An early step in the forensic analysis is to
remove clothing and personal possessions from
skeletons before the specialists start examining
the remains. This, explained Joan Bytheway, a
forensic anthropologist from the University of
Pittsburgh, is to ensure that experts don't form
biases about the victims. Bytheway pointed out
an entry hole at the top of a skull that she cra
dled, an exit hole near the left eye socket, and
a radiating crack in the left cheek. Only after
she and the other anthropologists incorporate
findings like this into biographical profiles
"female, mid-30s, five foot four to five foot
six"-do they reunite bones and possessions.
A few feet away from where Bytheway was
working, Tim Anson, an Australian anthropol
ogist from the University of Adelaide, showed
me a partial skeleton on a gurney. It had been
recovered from a grave near Al Hadr, about 55
miles southwest of Mosul. The most obvious
thing about it was that only the back of the skull
remained. "The entire face was blown away," said
Anson. He also noted leathery, mummified
tissue in the forearms and explained that this
was because the person had been buried in the
middle layer of a grave 12 to 14 feet deep. Even
after as long as 20 years in the earth, bodies far
ther underground often contain fat and other
soft tissue, while those closer to the top are
reduced to bare bones.
In an adjacent tent radiographer Jim Kister
demonstrated his work with a Faxitron, used to
x-ray bones to identify the source of trauma.
He clamped a large transparency of a man's rib
cage to a light box and pointed to a bullet. "This
guy took 11 bullets," he said. "He was shot to
hell." Kister said he anticipated that defendants
in the Baghdad trials would try to claim that
RWANDA 1994
Hutu mobs armedwith machetes and other
weapons killed roughly 8,000 Tutsis a day during
a three-month campaignof terror.Powerful
nations stood by as the slaughtersurged on
despitepleas from Rwandan and UN observers.
JIM NACHTWEY,VII
GENOCIDE 31